1. Field
The following description relates to an apparatus and a method for image rendering with an acceleration structure, and to an apparatus and a method for traversing an acceleration structure in ray tracing to render objects into images with efficiency.
2. Description of Related Art
Creation of a 2-dimensional (2D) image of virtual 3-dimensional (3D) objects may be achieved by various 3D rendering techniques. A 3D rendering technique refers to an image processing technique in which data regarding 3D objects may be synthesized into an image from a given view point.
Many rendering methods involve a rasterization of graphical information to generate an image, in which a 3D object is projected onto a screen or a grid and a ray tracing method is performed to generate the image by tracking the paths of incident lights along rays toward each respective pixels of the screen from a camera view point.
Because it is possible to apply physical properties of light, such as reflection, refraction, transmission, to ray tracing methods, a high quality image may be obtained. However, ray tracing methods require relatively massive calculation. While acceleration structures have been used to render 3D objects into 2D images with improved efficiencies, the computational load imposed by applying a ray tracing method is still significant. Thus, it is difficult to apply a ray tracing method to achieve high-speed rendering of 3D objects.